LEO Comes to Town

LEO Films, a Los-Angeles-based film production company founded in 1991, has pulled up stakes and relocated to Council Bluffs, Iowa, one of the latest film companies to take advantage of Iowa’s generous tax incentives for filmmakers.

The company has developed eighty feature films since its creation. Among the company’s 2009 releases are “Flesh Suitcase,” a film about drug dealers; “Eye,” a thriller about kidnapping; and “Space Zombies,” a film about . . . well, really, the title says it all.

The company’s first Iowa production will be “My Own Blood,” a thriller written, directed, and produced by company founder Steve Lustgarten.The film will be shot in and around Council Bluffs, with some shooting taking place in Des Moines. Many of the cast and crew will be from Iowa.

Lustgarten’s film career took off when he won a Student Academy Award in 1983 for “American Taboo,” a film about obsession that was chosen over Spike Lee’s student film, “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads." The plan is for LEO Films to stay in Iowa and make a lot of films.

Another success story for the Iowa tax incentive for filmmakers. Since the passing of the tax incentive in 2007, the state has issued $32 million in tax credits for over twenty film projects and recouped $810,000 more than it has lost in tax revenue.

Nebraska, are you listening?